Pro-gun Bob Casey backs restrictions

Sen. Bob Casey, the conservative Pennsylvania Democrat who has long opposed restrictions on guns, said Wednesday he would support bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips — saying last week’s Newtown, Conn., shootings should “haunt every public official.”

Over the weekend, after prompting from his wife, he began to reconsider his positions on guns, which have won him an ‘A’ rating from the National Rifle Association, Casey told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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“If those two bills come before the Senate, I’ll vote for both,” Casey said about banning assault weapons and magazines that carry more than 10 rounds. “The power of the weapon, the number of bullets that hit each child, that was so, to me, just so chilling it haunts me.”

He continued: “Work that we do doesn’t always bring you to that kind of deliberation or consideration. This has, for me, and I have to and I think I should vote that way on those two (measures).”

Casey joins a growing number of conservative Democrats with strong ties to the NRA who have publicly supported gun control legislation in the wake of the Newtown massacre, which left 26 people dead, including 20 children. The lawmakers include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, West Virgina Sen. Joe Manchin (who has since praised the NRA) and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner.

While we’re having that whole conversation about wadding up the Bill of Rights and throwing it into the trash, why don’t we have a brief conversation about what might have actually prevented the shooting by dealing with the by I Want This" >mental illness of the shooter.

Let’s talk ACLU instead of NRA.

Connecticut is one of only SIX states in the U.S. that doesn’t have a type of “assisted outpatient treatment” (AOT) law (sometimes referred to as “involuntary outpatient treatment”). There’s no one standard for these types of laws, but (roughly speaking) these are laws that allow for people with mental illness to be forcibly treated BEFORE they commit a serious by I Want This" >crime.

Whereas previous legal standards held that the mentally ill cannot be institutionalized or medicated until they harm someone or themselves, or until they express an immediate intent to do so, AOT laws (again, roughly speaking) allow for preventative institutionalization or forced medication

AOT laws vary state-by-state, and often bear the name of a person murdered by an untreated mentally ill person (“Kendra’s Law” in New York, “Laura’s Law” in California, etc.).

Earlier this year, Connecticut considered passing an AOT law (and a weak one, at that), and it failed, due to protests from “civil liberties” groups.

But thankfully the ACLU won and over two dozen children were murdered. And there will be of course no cries that the ACLU, rather than the NRA, should be held accountable for a dangerous lunatic being on the loose.

Casey joins a growing number of conservative Democrats with strong ties to the NRA who have publicly supported gun control legislation in the wake of the Newtown massacre, which left 26 people dead, including 20 children. The lawmakers include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, West Virgina Sen. Joe Manchin (who has since praised the NRA) and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner.

There IS no such thing as a "Conservative Democrat."

ObamaCare proved that...............

They parade as whatever they think will win them office, but they vote with the Liberal Democrats EVERY TIME push comes to shove.

You folks who keep putting these turncoats in office are nothing but suckers.

If some crazy guys hijack a few passenger planes and kill over 3,000 people by flying them into a skyscraper, should we ban airplanes?

And if a crazed mad man drives a vehicle into a crowd of people killing and injuring several, do we ban motor vehicles.

There are millions of people in America that own guns, including AR15s, that do not go mad killing other humans with their guns. Do we punish and penalize the millions because of the insanity of one person?

Obama and the liberals are going through the usual knee jerk reaction that politicians always...invariably,,,do when there is a calamity: pass a new law. Let's face it, all politicians are Narcisists, and none more so than Obama and Biden. They truly believe, with all the fibers of their being, that they have a mission...a mandate from God...to control and manipulate how the rest of us live our lives, and what freedoms are permitted or restrictions imposed.

You cannot stop crazy people from killing other people. It may be by the gun, it may be by explosives, it may be by arson, it may be by motor vehicle, but it will be.

The Sandy Hook massacre has a greater mass psychological impact because so many precious small children were killed. But if only one person was killed, would that make it more acceptable? More palatable? Would the clamor for gun control then be silent? Or, let's say it was 5 instead of 26; because the carnage would be less, would the gun control crowd then be silent...or at least muted? Would their message still resonate as large?

The number of daily killings in Chicago, Obama's adopted home town, occur on an industrial scale. Yet not one time have we seen Obama, or "Smiling Joe" Biden, attend any services for the fallen innocents of Chicago. Why is there a double standard, Mr. O?

More gun controls will not cure the root cause of killings by crazy people. Perhaps, that is just an unavoidable reality of modern, over crowed, Godless, materialistic, self centered human society.

– Appalachian School of Law, 2002: Crazed immigrant shoots the dean and a professor, then begins shooting students; as he goes for more ammunition, two armed students point their guns at him, allowing a third to tackle him. Total dead: Three.

– Santee, Calif., 2001: Student begins shooting his classmates — as well as the “trained campus supervisor”; an off-duty cop who happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day points his gun at the shooter, holding him until more police arrive. Total dead: Two.

– Pearl High School, Mississippi, 1997: After shooting several people at his high school, student heads for the junior high school; assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieves a .45 pistol from his car and points it at the gunman’s head, ending the murder spree. Total dead: Two.

– Edinboro, Pa., 1998: A student shoots up a junior high school dance being held at a restaurant; restaurant owner pulls out his shotgun and stops the gunman. Total dead: One.